The Australian Government has confirmed that the debris found in Mozambique is almost certainly from the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370.
Infrastructure and Transport Minister Darren Chester in a statement on Thursday said the analysis has found that the two pieces of debris discovered in separate locations in Mozambique in the past four months was likely to have come from MH370, reports the Guardian.
Blaine Alan Gibson, an American, had on February found a metre-long piece of metal washed up on a sand bank in Mozambique.
Later, a South African teenager Liam Lotter came forward with the similar item which he said he had discovered in southern
Mozambique in late December.
Both pieces arrived in Canberra on March 20 to be examined by investigators from Australia and Malaysia, along with specialists from Boeing, Geoscience Australia and the Australian National University.
The pieces were found to be consistent with panels from a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 aircraft by the analysts.
Before the discovery of two pieces, the only confirmed debris of the flight MH370 was a wing part recovered from a beach on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion.
Chester expressed that confirmation has boosted confidence in modelling used by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) in charge of the search for the plane to inform its 120,000 sq km search area.
"That such debris has been found on the east coast of Africa is consistent with drift modelling performed by CSIRO and further affirms our search efforts in the southern Indian Ocean.The search for MH370 continues. There are 25,000 sq km of the underwater search area still to be searched. We are focused on completing this task and remain hopeful the aircraft will be found," the Guardian quoted him as saying.
The Malaysian Ministry of Transport confirmed to the Australian authorities that the paint and stencilling on the debris matched those used by Malaysia Airlines and were almost certainly from MH370.
Meanwhile, Australia's Joint Agency Coordination Centre (JACC), said that Malaysia and South African officials were working together in arranging the examination of another piece of debris suspected to be the cowling from an engine picked up near Mossel Bay, a small town in Western Cape province.
In 2014, the flight MH370 disappeared from its radars after taking off from Kuala Lumpur, bound for Beijing, killing 239 passengers and crew members on board.
Australia is leading the search for the missing Malaysian flight in the southern Indian Ocean, where it is believed to have crashed after diverting from its route.
